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Answer: Yes, both give information about the ADC/DAC characteristic. One can be figured out from the other. However, the utility of showing both is to give the user a good view of both the ``close-up" and ``far-away" view of the ADC/DAC characteristics. To give you an analogy, the DNL is like a close-up photograph of something, which shows you fine details - like how rough the surface is etc. In a close-up, one is not able immediately infer the ``big-picture" of how the object looks like, though this can be computed. On the other hand, the INL is like a ``long-shot", which immediately gives you the big picture, but without confusing you with the ``nitty-gritty" details. Both close-ups and long-shots have their utilities (depending on the situation), and the same holds for the DNL and INL. Hope this helps.

Answer: I am sorry, but this is not the right forum to ask this question.

Answer: This is a very application dependent one. DNL is very important in a video application, as the human eye is very sensitive to sudden changes in color. That is, the eye will very easily pickup intensity/color differences in neighbouring pixels, but is lot less sensitive to gradual changes in hue/intensity across the screen. Similarly, monotonicity will be very important in an application where the ADC/DAC is embedded in a control loop.

Answer: A track-and-hold in front of a flash ADC greatly reduces the effect of clock skew and is highly recommended for a high performance flash ADC. Of course, you can avoid the T/H and take the hit in performance.

Answer: The noise floor goes down by 3dB with respect to the signal. The logic behind this is that there are now twice as many bins - which means that the power per bin has to go down by half, on the average.

Answer: The fT is computed assuming the transistor is operating in saturation - this makes sense, as the latching devices are in saturation at the beginning of the regeneration phase.

Answer: Please see the electronics textbook by Sedra and Smith to get a basic understanding of this.

Answer: **Ideally**, a sample-and-hold should, quite simply, sample - and hold for the rest of the clock cycle. A track-and-hold, on the other hand, should track the input for (typically) half cycle and hold for the other half. HOwever, in practice, these two terms seem to be used interchangeably by practitioners.

Answer: The buffer is needed to isolate the hold capacitor from the comparator array. It is not needed if the output impedance of the T/H is low (which means that the buffer is inside the T/H.) The T/H must be able to drive the comparator array without any distortion.

Answer: One way of estimating this is the following. Put int a slowly varying ramp (starting from zero and ending at +vref in about a million steps). When the input exceeds the MSA, the input to the quantizer (which is embedded in the feedback loop) blows up.

Answer: Yes, both give information about the ADC/DAC characteristic. One can be figured out from the other. However, the utility of showing both is to give the user a good view of both the ``close-up" and ``far-away" view of the ADC/DAC characteristics. To give you an analogy, the DNL is like a close-up photograph of something, which shows you fine details - like how rough the surface is etc. In a close-up, one is not able immediately infer the ``big-picture" of how the object looks like, though this can be computed. On the other hand, the INL is like a ``long-shot", which immediately gives you the big picture, but without confusing you with the ``nitty-gritty" details. Both close-ups and long-shots have their utilities (depending on the situation), and the same holds for the DNL and INL. Hope this helps.

Answer: I am sorry, but this is not the right forum to ask this question.

Answer: This is a very application dependent one. DNL is very important in a video application, as the human eye is very sensitive to sudden changes in color. That is, the eye will very easily pickup intensity/color differences in neighbouring pixels, but is lot less sensitive to gradual changes in hue/intensity across the screen. Similarly, monotonicity will be very important in an application where the ADC/DAC is embedded in a control loop.

Answer: A track-and-hold in front of a flash ADC greatly reduces the effect of clock skew and is highly recommended for a high performance flash ADC. Of course, you can avoid the T/H and take the hit in performance.

Answer: The noise floor goes down by 3dB with respect to the signal. The logic behind this is that there are now twice as many bins - which means that the power per bin has to go down by half, on the average.

Answer: The fT is computed assuming the transistor is operating in saturation - this makes sense, as the latching devices are in saturation at the beginning of the regeneration phase.

Answer: Please see the electronics textbook by Sedra and Smith to get a basic understanding of this.

Answer: **Ideally**, a sample-and-hold should, quite simply, sample - and hold for the rest of the clock cycle. A track-and-hold, on the other hand, should track the input for (typically) half cycle and hold for the other half. HOwever, in practice, these two terms seem to be used interchangeably by practitioners.

Answer: The buffer is needed to isolate the hold capacitor from the comparator array. It is not needed if the output impedance of the T/H is low (which means that the buffer is inside the T/H.) The T/H must be able to drive the comparator array without any distortion.

Answer: One way of estimating this is the following. Put int a slowly varying ramp (starting from zero and ending at +vref in about a million steps). When the input exceeds the MSA, the input to the quantizer (which is embedded in the feedback loop) blows up.